JUSTICE FOR BISHOP GEORGE BELL OF CHICHESTER

PART 2 - CONVERSATION BETWEEN UNCLE BRIAN, ANTON & SIGFRIDIII

Uncle Brian to Anton:

Anton, unless I’m reading too much into your cryptic two-word comment, you seem to be suggesting something like this:

Premise No. 1.—The Church holds an insurance policy that covers indemnity payouts to victims of sexual abuse by Anglican clergy, but a clause in the policy stipulates that the Church must treat the existence of the insurance policy as strictly confidential.

Premise No. 2.—In the present case, the bishops are refusing to publish details of their “very thorough investigation” because to do so would be somehow to breach the confidentiality clause in their insurance policy.

Conclusion.—By their very silence, the bishops are publicly (albeit only implicitly) providing confirmation that they do in fact hold an insurance policy of the kind described. Therefore, by publicly providing such confirmation, they have breached the confidentiality clause in their insurance policy.

PART 3 (FINAL) - CONVERSATION BETWEEN UNCLE BRIAN, ANTON & SIGFRIDIII

http://archbishopcranmer.com/the-absurd-fiction-of-the-need-for-secrecy-in-the-trial-of-bishop-george-bell/

Uncle Brian (cont): Is that it, Anton? In that case, what happens next?

Anton to Uncle Brian.

No! I was suggesting merely that an insurers' gagging clause might include the condition that the existence of the gag not be revealed.

MAALAISTOLLO COMMENT

http://archbishopcranmer.com/the-absurd-fiction-of-the-need-for-secrecy-in-the-trial-of-bishop-george-bell/

"Might it not be the case that the manifestly unfair pursuit of the apparently blameless and/or deceased is designed to get the public to the point where they will acquiesce in further historic abuse investigations of all kinds being dropped, thus letting the real and surviving but highly placed perpetrators off the hook?"

DAVID COMMENT

"Yes, maybe indeed - or pursuing certain individuals, who are probably innocent, is cynically used as a decoy to deflect attention away from living establishment figures where there is desire to not investigate their alleged crimes"

SIGFRIDIII COMMENT

http://archbishopcranmer.com/the-absurd-fiction-of-the-need-for-secrecy-in-the-trial-of-bishop-george-bell/

"Lambeth seems to operate the same school of spin as that practised by No.10. Keep on saying it and eventually everyone will either believe it, or capitulate"

PART 1 - CHURCH TIMES ARTICLE - MAY 20 2016

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2016/20-may/comment/opinion/accusation-and-condemnation

Accusation and condemnation

Andrew Chandler on the cases of George Bell and one of the men he championed

ON 1 July 1937, the Pastor of Dahlem, a comfortable suburb of Berlin, was arrested and taken into custody. It was not unusual for a pastor to be detained in such a way in Germany that summer. But this case was, at once, conspicuous. The pastor was not released.

What could he have done? Every society and age has a sense of what its greatest crime may be, so that the power of allegation itself may be enough to cast a man or woman out from respectable company and make a good name ...

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PART 2 - CHURCH TIMES ARTICLE - MAY 20 2016

IF HE were alive now, what would Niemöller say to the Church of England? For it is not the Pastor of Dahlem but the now long-dead English bishop who stands accused, and of the greatest crime known to contemporary society.
Much on this has already been published in the columns of this paper. Those who are responsible have repeatedly emphasised that care is due to the person who has accused Bell of assaulting her as a child. But they should also ask themselves that, if innocence, not guilt, must be proved, how may any innocent man or woman feel safe, particularly when an accusation may be made years, even decades later, with no necessity to prove things in court, no need for conventional proof, little consistency, and no corroboration?

PART 3 - CHURCH TIMES ARTICLE - MAY 20 2016

Various assumptions can be made: that there is no smoke without fire; that the responsible authorities always act thoroughly and credibly, even when they work in secret; that experts are trustworthy, even if the basis and character of their expertise is unknown; even that good people often do wicked things.
Would any of that have reassured a bishop such as Henson? Perhaps such things will always happen to somebody else, and leave us undisturbed. What did Niemöller once famously observe about that?

PART 4 - CHURCH TIMES ARTICLE - MAY 20 2016

Archbishop Söderblom, who admired Bell profoundly, once said that this was a Bell that never rang without reason. Now the reason is a new one: it is for those men and women — often in public service, schoolteachers, practitioners of medicine and pastoral care — who find that it is not innocence but guilt that is first assumed; who struggle as best they can to clear their names; who face suspension from work, contempt, isolation, and even violence in the communities that they serve; even exclusion from their own churches.
These things are not going on in some despotic foreign state. Even if we have forgotten all the other reasons that George Bell matters to us in 2016, this is one reason we might acknowledge. Rather than suppress his name — even challenging its place in the C of E’s calendar — we should cling to it for all our worth.

PART 5 - CHURCH TIMES ARTICLE - MAY 20 2016

"More from Andrew Chandler writing in this week's Church Times about BISHOP GEORGE BELL. Just as the Church of England deserted Niemoller in his hour of need, so its 21st Century descendents have deserted the pastor's courageous friend and advocate and labeled him a criminal and non-person without the benefit of due legal process"

~ Jill Armstead

PART 6 - CHURCH TIMES ARTICLE - MAY 20 2016

In July 1938, Bell marked the first anniversary of Niemöller’s detention at a service of intercession in St Martin-in-the-Fields, in central London. By August, he was working on the creation of a new Guild of Prayer for all those who were in prison and all who suffered in Germany and Austria. Subscription would cost 3d. a week, but there was also a yearly rate: clearly Bell did not think that Niemöller would be freed soon. (Life fellowship could be had for £10.)

PART 7 - CHURCH TIMES ARTICLE - MAY 20 2016

But here Bell encountered an objection. The Vicar’s secretary at St Martin’s wrote: “the Vicar feels, in common with us all, that this ‘special guild’ approaches too nearly to the likeness of a political effort. We may well have the German Ambassador refusing to come.”
Another example of the Church’s ambivalence broke out in the correspondence columns of The Times. The Bishop of Durham, Herbert Hensley Henson, got into a fight with the Bishop of Gloucester, Arthur Headlam, who thought that the German state would not have moved against Niemöller unless he had given them reason. He told Henson that it was more important to understand the German authorities than it was to criticise them.

PART 8 - CHURCH TIMES ARTICLE - MAY 20 2016

Henson exploded at this. As far as Headlam was concerned, Henson did not know his place. As far as Henson was concerned, a bishop should know an offence against justice for what it was. In 1938, episcopal collegiality had its limits.

PART 9 - CHURCH TIMES ARTICLE - MAY 20 2016

THROUGH the long war, which broke out in September 1939, the Bishop of Chichester remained constant to the imprisoned Pastor of Dahlem. Every year, a special service of intercession took place for him. Little news of any kind from inside Germany reached him, and what news emerged was bleak and bitter. When so many perished, how could it be hoped that one such as Niemöller could survive?
In fact, Niemöller did survive. When peace came, he was reunited with his wife, and restored to his friends. And, in October 1945, George Bell met his friend again, in Stuttgart.

PART 10 (FINAL) - CHURCH TIMES ARTICLE - MAY 20 2016

It was not the pastor but the bishop who would die first. In 1958, Niemöller paid tribute to his friend, ally, and advocate in a BBC programme. “George Bell”, he said, “was a Christian who was led and riven by the love of Christ Jesus himself. He couldn’t see somebody suffering without suffering himself. He couldn’t see people left alone without becoming their brother.”

ALBERT'S COMMENT

"...this is also about caring for the accuser. No reasonable person can currently accept that +Bell is guilty....The secrecy surrounding this case is making us all question the veracity of the accuser, which, if she really is the survivor of child abuse must be very painful indeed
No one is benefiting from the present unjust situation"

~ Albert

http://archbishopcranmer.com/the-absurd-fiction-of-the-need-for-secrecy-in-the-trial-of-bishop-george-bell/